Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Hammersmith Apollo, London
Monday, 12 May 2008
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The gangly Aussie showman from the titchy town of Warracknabeal implores us to screech "Oh Mama" during the grisly murder anthem "Lyre of Orpheus". And, very obediently, we all do. Nick Cave, in feverish preacher mode, and his apostles, the Bad Seeds, manage, despite all the technical hitches, to deliver a blistering sermon. You can imagine them going down a storm in 17th-century Salem, spitting hellfire.
Cave sports a black shirt, a silver chain, a Zapata moustache and chunky sideboards. He is a mix of a dapper, but slightly spivvy, 1970s snooker player and, God forbid, Demis Roussos. Warren Ellis, his guitarist, violinist, flautist and chief loyal cohort, behaves in a suitably caveman fashion, with his feral beard and tendency to indulge in roly-poly forays on the stage floor. Together they dominate this delightfully messy two-hour gig.
"I watched him and from that point I saw that music could be an evil thing, a beautiful, evil thing," Cave once said about his hero, Johnny Cash. And for the past decade, the slaying-obsessed balladeer has seized Cash's degenerate "Man in Black" mantle.
But it seems that The Birthday Party outsider and former heroin addict is now firmly part of the rock establishment and more popular than ever. Like a 1947 Château Cheval Blanc, the witty grump is maturing splendidly, with his latest, suitably sinister, bass-laden album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, being arguably his most compelling and amusing yet. Cave mines the record with considerable zeal tonight, energetically belting out blood-curdling rants such as "We Call the Author", with the memorable lyric "Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!" Ellis and Mick Harvey's urgent, choppy guitars add to the menace.
On "Today's Lesson", "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" and "Night of the Lotus Eaters", Cave delivers dollops of murkiness, prostitution, firearms – "stockpiles" of them – lunacy and death. The tracks all embrace his abiding fixation with sex, sacrifice, confession and the Lord Almighty. However, as respite from the venom and kinkiness, he warms the crowd's gothic-punk hearts with his gorgeous "Into My Arms", from his deeply personal, elegiac masterpiece The Boatman's Call.
All that's missing is a guest spot from Kylie on "Where the Wild Roses Grow". However, Cave's steadfast posse of Bad Seeds more than compensate, ripping it up on "Red Right Hand", "Deanna" and the superb stomp "More News from Nowhere". It's a sensational service.
